Racial Justice
Voting Rights and Enfranchisement
In the last decade, more than 30 states have considered voter suppression laws whose clear intent is to disenfranchise people of color. How pathetic and how cowardly is that. Together we will end voter suppression in this country and move to automatic voter registration. We are going to make voting easier, not harder. To protect our democracy, we must:
- Restore the Voting Rights Act.
- Re-enfranchise the right to vote to the 1 in 13 African-Americans who have had their vote taken away by a felony conviction, paid their debt to society, and deserve to have their rights restored.
- Secure automatic voter registration for every American over 18.
- End voter suppression and gerrymandering.
- Abolish burdensome voter ID laws.
- Make Election Day a national holiday.
Criminal Justice
Over the last number of years, we have seen a terrible level of police violence against unarmed people in the minority community: Laquan McDonald, Sandra Bland, Michael Brown, Rekia Boyd, Eric Garner, Walter Scott, Freddie Gray, Jessica Hernandez, Tamir Rice, Jonathan Ferrell, Oscar Grant, Antonio Zambrano-Montes and others. People of color, killed by the police, who should be alive today. We know that African-Americans are twice as likely to be arrested, and almost four times as likely to experience physical force in an encounter with the police.
Today, black men are sentenced to 19% more jail time for committing the exact same crime as white men, and African Americans are jailed at more than five times the rate of whites.
All of this and more is why we are finally going to bring about real criminal justice reform in this country. We are going to end the international embarrassment of having more people in jail than any other country on earth. Instead of spending $80 billion a year on jails and incarceration, we are going to invest in jobs and education for our young people. No more private prisons and detention centers. No more profiteering from locking people up. No more "war on drugs.
Environmental Justice
Today, Flint, Michigan, is still without new pipes for clean water, and there are 3,000 other Flint, Michigans, across the country—neighborhoods with lead rates that were double those of Flint during the height of its crisis. Together, we must:
- Enact a Green New Deal not just to save the planet, but to protect our most vulnerable communities. We must end the scourge of environmental racism, and at the same time create green jobs to support and rebuild the local economies of affected communities.
- Protect low-income and minority communities, who are hit first and worst by the causes and impacts of climate change, while also protecting existing energy-sector workers as they transition into clean energy and other jobs.
- Address the inadequate environmental cleanup efforts of Superfund hazardous waste sites in communities of color.
- Stop the exposure of people of color to harmful chemicals, pesticides and other toxins in homes, schools, neighborhoods, and workplaces and challenge faulty assumptions in calculating, assessing, and managing risks, discriminatory zoning and land-use practices and exclusionary policies.
- Enact a Green New Deal to mitigate climate change and focus on building resilience in low-income and minority communities.
Address Healthcare Disparities
Today, the infant mortality rate in black communities is more than double the rate for white communities, and the death rates from cancer and almost every other disease is far higher for blacks. Black women are three and a half times more likely to die from pregnancy than white women. We must:
- End the racial disparities in our health care system—31% of African Americans and 32% of Hispanics struggle paying medical bills compared to 24% of white Americans. We must guarantee health care to all people of color as a right, not a privilege, through a Medicare-for-all, single-payer program and end this inequity.
Legalizing Marijuana
Ensure that revenue from legal marijuana is reinvested in communities hit hardest by the War on Drugs, especially African-American and other communities of color.
With new tax resources from legal marijuana sales, we will:
- Create a $20 billion grant program within the Minority Business Development Agency to provide grants to entrepreneurs of color who continue to face discrimination in access to capital.
- With this revenue we will also create a $10 billion grant program to focus on businesses that are at least 51% owned or controlled by those in disproportionately impacted areas or individuals who have been arrested for or convicted of marijuana offenses.
- Provide formerly incarcerated individuals with training and resources needed to start their own businesses and worker owned businesses, and guarantee jobs and free job training at trade schools and apprenticeship programs related to marijuana businesses.